1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for assigning a station name to a number of components of an industrial automation arrangement, and to a configuration component for assigning a station name to a number of components of the industrial automation arrangement.
2. Description of the Related Art
In data networks, network components have a network address. In the case of the known Ethernet-based networks, this is the Internet Protocol (IP) address, for example, with the components (network devices) additionally also having a hardware address, known as the address Media Access Control address (MAC). While the (MAC) address of each component, as just mentioned, is permanently programmed and also each MAC address is allocated only once, the IP addresses can be assigned dynamically, which means that one and the same device or one and the same component can have different network addresses at different times.
In industrial automation arrangements, data networks are frequently used with communication protocols that are optimized for this purpose, such as the PROFINET IO protocol. To ensure correct communication even in the case of changing network addresses (IP addresses) or when components are interchanged, i.e., when the MAC addresses are changed, the message interchange in industrial automation arrangements in productive operation is based primarily on device names, usually called “station names” in this context, which are assigned to the components. These names are likewise explicit in a communication network or subnetwork; for example, the relevant parameter is called “NameOfStation”. When an automation arrangement or a network segment is started up, it is thus necessary for all components that are subsequently intended to participate in the message interchange via the network to be configured with a respective explicit station name “NameOfStation”. To this end, the known programming environments, such as the products STEP7 or TIA portal from Siemens, have functions available, such as “edit Ethernet subscriber” or “allocate device name”. Similarly, standalone configuration tools or configuration components are known, for example the programs Primary Setup Tool (PST) or PRONETA. In this case, a—possibly automatically created—list of all active components in the network or in the subnetwork (network segment) is created, with the user having to search this list, known as the “lifelist”, for every single device in his projected configuration to identify the device or the component that is intended to be assigned a projected device name.
Particularly in the case of complex automation arrangements with many components and devices, this “lifelist” may be very extensive, which makes the assignment process confusing and complex. As a remedy, it is a known practice for the “lifelist” to display only devices and components of a particular device type or to display only such devices and components as still having no associated device name. Although this allows the outlined problem to be alleviated, it usually cannot be eliminated. Likewise, it is possible to search the “lifelist” for a particular, known MAC address, but this means that a user needs to know beforehand what MAC address a device or component to be configured has. Overall, the process of configuring the components and devices in a network or in a network segment with device names is not very user friendly and hence is often susceptible to error.